This one fragment in Bai Yunfei’s hand was ovallish in shape and was two fingers wide and half an inch thick. Aside from the two holes on two sides of it, this fragment was almost perfect in shape like jade with several seemingly haphazard notches cut into it.

If the Black Dragon King was here, he would’ve recognized this piece straight away as being the ‘jade disk’; the piece of jade that was located at the central most part of the backrest and where all of the mysterious runic script originated from.

His shock had reached a maximum when he first saw that effect–this fragment had been the only one that didn’t have to do with the ability to upgrade!

And even more interesting–this fragment could be upgraded!

He clutched this jade stone into his hand, breathing heavily in an attempt to calm himself down. Closing his eyes, Bai Yunfei tried to ease himself into tranquility.

“All the other fragments are responsible for the third and fourth additional effect of the Nephrite Throne, but this fragment was only able to ‘inherit’ the first additional effect and not the second one….” Bai Yunfei thought. “I wasn’t able to really look at the Nephrite Throne, so I’m not sure of the specifics. But this must’ve been from the backrest of the throne, why is it so different from the others?”

He studied the piece closely, making sure to memorize each of the finer details into his mind. Right now, an outline of the throne was weighing on his mind, and each of the fragments he had were slowly filling in that outline.

“I definitely didn’t collect all of the pieces, and some of them were completely destroyed….” His eyebrows furrowed together. Bai Yunfei was sure that he didn’t have all of the pieces even after searching the entire area for them. Some pieces would’ve been far too small for his eyes to see, and he had been in a rush to leave too.

So roughly a third of the Nephrite Throne was completely lost to him, and so the backrest of the throne had its fair share of ‘gaps’….

“Did they….fall into the water?” He conjectured.

There had been a river not too far away from where Bai Yunfei was searching. Surely, some of the pieces had to have fallen into the water, and Bai Yunfei couldn’t have picked them up if they did.

The waters had been flowing far too fast for the fragments to anchor themselves into the waterbed. With their relative size and density, the river must’ve taken them far far away from Bai Yunfei, meaning they were lost to him.

“What a shame…”

It was with great pity that Bai Yunfei wrote off his losses. A great deal of the foundation was missing, many of these ‘Guaranteed Upgrade Stones’ surely would’ve been able to upgrade a +12 or +13 piece of equipment. And with some of the backrest missing, Bai Yunfei was sure there would’ve been some jade stones similar to this one that could’ve helped him train even faster.

‘Guaranteed Upgrade Stones’. That was the name Bai Yunfei came up for these fragments. Like Upgrade Stones, they could upgrade equipment, but they were also capable of allowing equipment to be upgraded without fear of failure. Like the Upgrade Stone given to him by Hai Dongqing–which had a higher chance of success than others—, these fragments were special in that they were guaranteed successes.

Bai Yunfei had a slight suspicion on why there might’ve been a difference between the two stones, but they were merely suspicions and not facts…..

He put away the jade disk in favor of returning his attention to the many upgrade stones he had.

“Although the Nephrite Throne was destroyed, the stones left behind by it will still help me…..I can’t upgrade the Cataclysmic Seal anymore, but the other equipment have a chance now. Still hard to say if this is better or not, though.”

After giving it much thought, Bai Yunfei finally decided to categorize the new Guaranteed Upgrade Stones into mini-groups.

It went as following:

The amount of upgrade stones that guaranteed success for any equipment +13 and under and enhanced items up to mid-heaven tier: One

The amount of upgrade stones that guaranteed success for any equipment +12 and under and enhanced items up to low-heaven tier: Two

The amount of upgrade stones that guaranteed success for any equipment +11 and under and enhanced items up to low-heaven tier: Four

The amount of upgrade stones that guaranteed success for any equipment +10 and under and enhanced items up to high-earth tier: Eight

The rest of the upgrade stones were only capable of guaranteeing success of equipment +9, +8, and all the way to +3 were far too many for Bai Yunfei to bother categorizing.

Bai Yunfei was excited though. Aside from the smaller pieces, he had seven upgrade stones that were extremely useful to him, so useful that he felt like he was living a dream!

With these upgrade stones, he’d be able to upgrade any +10 piece of equipment without fear of failing!

He had dreamed of having upgrade stones with these effects before, but this was a reality he never expected to come!

Still. He wasn’t so happy that he’d use one of the more bigger upgrade stones. He’d start from the bottom first with the smallest.

These stones–while inherently useless–were still good fodder to fuel his research.

Taking out a golden blade in his left hand, Bai Yunfei looked down at the crack running through it.

This was the soul armament that soul refiner had used.

An ordinary soul armament that was only noticeable because it was a high-earth tier soul armament.

First upgrading it to +6, Bai Yunfei looked at it, and then to the upgrade stone in his hand. “Upgrade.”

He waited for the notification that’d ask for confirmation if he wanted to use the upgrade stone, but it never came.

“As I thought, I can’t use the stone if it doesn’t meet the requirements.”

This was the line that neatly divided the Guaranteed Upgrade Stones from the Upgrade Stones.

He took out a +8 Upgrade Stone and then looked back to the sword.

“Upgrade.”

Agreeing to the prompt, Bai Yunfei watched as the sword was upgraded to +7.

The first signs of deviation started when the upgrade stone transformed into white dust to be absorbed into the sword. The notification hadn’t even popped into his mind when Bai Yunfei’s eyebrows furrowed together.

“This sensation….” Bai Yunfei thought. Taking another +8 upgrade stone, he upgraded the sword to +8.

But this time, he eyed the sword intently while the upgrading process took place.

He had noticed something.

The sword was upgraded to +9.

He took out a +10 upgrade stone.

“Upgrade.”

An unordinary +10 additional effect. Though the sword had gained enough strength to qualify it as a low-heaven tier soul armament, Bai Yunfei wasn’t paying any attention to that.

His eyes were closed, as if thinking about something.

Two minutes later, his eyes flew open.

s.h.i.+ning with a strange light, Bai Yunfei looked as though he had realized something.

“Time to upgrade even more!”

Putting away the sword, he replaced it with his Ardent Sun Gloves and took out a +11 upgrade stone….